Here’s a great example of why you need to attend every convention and workshop you can find: you meet new people!  At WPPI I had a chance to meet and talk with Jeremy Cowart. I’ve admired him for a long time, but our paths just never crossed.
This morning I got an email from Yasmin Tajik [...]

The Summer School site for 2012 launched this morning, but there’s a lesson here that’s definitely worthy of a post! I appreciate all the great feedback and suggestions that went into this year’s program. I get a lot of accolades, but the truth is, the success of the program has little to do with me. [...]

We know time is your most valuable commodity and there’s never enough of it.  So in putting together this year’s program we took the key points from everyone’s feedback following last year, and built a new Skip’s Summer School!The three top requests from our 2011 post-program survey were more hands-on training, more marketing/business and a more central location. 
There [...]

Yesterday I was making some changes in my presentation for next weekend’s PhotoPro Expo show and I started to feel just plain rushed. For a minute or two I had sort of an out of body experience, feeling like I was trapped in an old Jimmy Stewart movie and to pass the time they just [...]

The best part of this industry is when you get that perfect combination of photography, social media and networking mixed with the passion for the craft.  Nobody is a better example than new friend, Levi Sim from Utah.  Levi joined us this summer at Summer School, where after several emails and  phone conversations over the last year [...]

Projects like Summer School don’t happen without incredible support from lots of different people. Every year I feel like I write pretty much the same thing…I thank the speakers, then everyone who helped make it possible and the vendors, then I move to a few isolated individuals. Along the way I probably offend somebody I miss.  This [...]

At every workshop and convention you attend there’s a “decisive moment” when it’s over. It’s that moment when you start to inventory what you’ve learned, the people you met, the concepts you want to experiment with, etc. You’re overwhelmed with the possibilities and at the same time chomping at the bit to get started.
I’m writing a [...]

This morning we wrap up Summer School and it’s interesting to see the transformation that’s taken place after just two days of a group of people being together. Even the word “interesting” so understates the enthusiasm, fun and the privilege I feel at being a part of Summer School.  Sure, it’s my event and my [...]

At every convention there’s always one program that becomes a favorite and last night was one of mine. “Open Forum” started by accident at last year’s Summer School when a couple of attendees, new photographers, asked if a few of the instructors could hang out for a little while and just talk. Within twenty minutes we had [...]

With Summer School starting in just a few days, whether you’re joining us or not, you need to be thinking about your network. A good network doesn’t happen by accident – it takes work to keep it maintained, active and useful. In this Real World Real Lessons post from GoingPro, I hit on a whole [...]